


watch the ripples change their size

by SafelyCapricious



Series: ain't no grave can hold my body down [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:09:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26818615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/pseuds/SafelyCapricious
Summary: Zuko should’ve drowned when he was three. It’s not something he remembers — his mother, called away, had been forced to leave the children with a nanny, despite her feelings of dread that something terrible was going to happen. She’d been much relieved when she’d returned to her darling boy, sleeping peacefully, little hand curled around a stone from the turtleduck pond, and her sweet girl burbling away angrily in her crib.For Katara there are many close calls, where she thinks the fire should have hit her but it miraculously doesn’t — but it’s when Aang is practicing and she sees the flame coat her skin for an instant that she knows.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: ain't no grave can hold my body down [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950148
Comments: 44
Kudos: 282





	watch the ripples change their size

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Bowie's Changes because I'm continuing the trend of just taking lyrics from whatever song is actively playing when I start preparing to post. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> IT IS DAY FOUR OF FICTOBER! WE ARE ALL STILL ALIVE! I'M SO PROUD OF EVERYONE! 
> 
> Using my self made prompt of "midnight" for this one, because I am bad at prompts but it's some sort of structure so we'll count it as good. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy! 
> 
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Zuko should’ve drowned when he was three. It’s not something he remembers — his mother, called away, had been forced to leave the children with a nanny, despite her feelings of dread that something terrible was going to happen. She’d been much relieved when she’d returned to her darling boy, sleeping peacefully, little hand curled around a stone from the turtleduck pond, and her sweet girl burbling away angrily in her crib.

He’d fallen in the turtleduck pond — hand reaching out for the little friends that seemed happy to come close when his mama was there but who stayed so far away when he was by himself — the nanny had been coo-ing over Azula (who hadn’t been particularly happy with the noise, but at one was unable to express that anger well) and didn’t see him tumble in. She heard the splash, of course, but it had hardly been the first such noise as he’d taken to splashing at the edge of the pond to try to get the attention of the little animals. It was the extended silence, afterwards, that finally caught her attention.

He’d been under the water for several minutes. Frantic, she went in after him, drenching herself in the processes and as she pulled up the boy he’d smiled wide and sweet at her and laughed — “Fun! Again!” he insisted.

They all spent the rest of the day indoors, once they’d been changed out of their wet things, and the nanny assumed he’d only been under for seconds and never told anyone.

And so Zuko never knows.

***

Katara wishes she didn’t.

There are many close calls, where she thinks the fire should have hit her but it miraculously doesn’t — but it’s when Aang is practicing and she sees the flame coat her skin for an instant that she knows.

She pulls back, shocked, clutching her arm to herself as he stutters apologies and she can do nothing but stare at him in horror.

He goes running off before she can explain — which gives her the chance to not explain. She doesn’t want it to be true because, because — they’re the enemy! But soulmates are rare — rarer still among benders, and for her to actually be immune to harm from fire would mean —

She doesn’t want to think about it. So she doesn’t.

Aunt Wu doesn’t help. A _strong_ bender she says — and she says _it._ Says _soulmate_. (She also says _they’ll make mistakes, but will return to you_ and Katara is romantic enough that her heart lurches at the sentence before she manages to remind herself that she doesn’t want him, or her, or them — she doesn’t want any fire bender.)

Jet is a mistake, she’ll admit. But he’s not a bender and she thinks, maybe she can avoid her fate and could be happy and — betrayal.

It doesn’t help that she only knows of one Firebender even close to their age and — no. Just no.

That no becomes even more vehement when she meets another one — and then it occurs to her that unlike waterbenders, of which there is a finite number, there are…just so many firebenders.

And she wants to rage and scream again.

But she thinks she knows who it is.

And she doesn’t want it to be because.

Because.

He should’ve drowned, a few times, when they fought, and he can still be hit by the force of the water but it doesn’t hurt him as much as it should, she knows. (But there are other water benders, though not as many as there are fire benders, and surely it could be one of them for him?)

***

He’s wearing a mask and he’s rescuing the Avatar when he realizes. Because there’s a bucket of water and he throws it and he just means to hit them with the bucket itself but the water flows and flows and — he’s seen enough water bending, now, to know what it is.

And that’s almost distracting enough to get him captured but he won’t let it and he keeps going because he has a mission and he can’t think about it and he can’t admit it and —

He’s not that lucky, is he?

Having a soulmate is lucky. Most people don’t have one, and a bender having a soulmate who is also a bender is even more rare and —

He’s not that lucky.

He decides he must have imagined it, and he pretends it never happened until he’s on the beach and thinking and the water is just there and no one is watching and he tries and — it’s not like fire bending but he feels it as the water waves at him before crashing back into something natural.

There are water benders in the North, he knows, but as he sits on the beach and panic tightens his chest he knows who it is.

And he knows that she hates him.

And he knows that he has no one to blame for that but himself and he wants to cry — but he won’t because even though his sister has wandered off she’ll come back as soon as she senses weakness.

(Katara, dozing slightly in Appa’s saddle, rubs at her chest where it hurts, where it’s been hurting, and rolls over to pillow her head against her brother’s shoulder.

She still hasn’t told them about her soulmate — that she has a soulmate who is a fire bender — because she knows how horrified her brother will be, and how heartbroken Aang will be, and how irreverent Toph will be and — she’d probably be okay telling Toph, really, but she doesn’t know how to bring it up without being awkward and she doesn’t entirely trust Toph to keep it to herself, anyways.

Besides, she doesn’t know who it is — she _doesn’t_.)

***

Neither of them talk about it.

She’s mad enough that he’s there at all, and while no part of him has even a shred of hope he just doesn’t want to cause her more pain. He knows he has no rights to her and doesn’t know how to even bring it up.

She, on the other hand, is still refusing to admit it could be him, even as she can feel him like a ghost limb.

He doesn’t comment when she grabs a pan without a hot pad and doesn’t seem to notice even as no one else can touch it.

She doesn’t comment when he sticks his head into the fountain to cool down and stays there far longer than he should.

***

She rubs her chest, again, feeling the pain that’s still there, before she forgives him and he holds her in his arms like he never wants to let her go, but he doesn’t let himself hope.

He’s unfamiliar with hope and doesn’t know how to make a place for it.

They still don’t talk about it.

“You might need to redirect lighting,” he says, as they sit in the dark of midnight before the comet comes, and he refuses to glance at her because they’ve not talked about it for so long that he’s sure she’s not going to want to and —

“Teach me how,” she says, instead of anything. Which, which is good in theory, but he’s never been good at making lightning and he wouldn’t direct any towards her even if he _could_ because the thought of hurting her terrifies him. But he can show her how he moves, when he’s directing it, and how to breathe, and he describes how it feels and — it’s better than nothing.

“This is how you bend blood,” she says, once he’s done. She does demonstrate on him, taking him over and forcing his limbs to move to her whims. And he thinks he could break the hold because she won’t hurt him either, not if she can help it, but he lets her maneuver his arms so he’s patting his head and rubbing his stomach and gives her such a glum look that she falls down laughing as she releases his arms back to himself.

He’s not able to use it on her, for all that she stands loose limbed and tells him to try. It reminds him, somewhat, of trying to create lightning — and he wonders if this means that once they’ve bonded she’d be able to actually create lightning instead of just direct it.

In myth they’ll both have the full power of the other’s bending, once they’ve bonded, but Katara is…so powerful and he cannot imagine actually being able to do what she can do and he thinks she will be able to do more with his ‘gifts’ than he can.

He tries not to wonder if she regrets being tied to him — he who is lucky to have been born.

He practices more, because she wants him too, before eventually giving up and waving a hand through the air. They need to sleep and — and then she’s in his arms and hugging him and —

And this is what he’s fighting for, he knows.

They’ll win.

They have to.

They don’t have a choice.

**Author's Note:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> As always, come chat if you'd like, I have a few tumblr's but if you wanna talk fic then the best place would be my [writing tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/capriciouswrites).
> 
> Lemme know what you think!


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